What
this document contains -
This document blends the Darwin and FitzRoy narratives of the
second survey mission of H.M.S. Beagle, and provides detailed
illustrations of the route taken by the Beagle, and of Darwin's
inland treks during the voyage. As far as I know, this is the
first time a presentation of the Beagle Voyage has been given
in this amount of detail.

The
documents used to create this part of the website include:

Narrative
of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and
Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, Volume 1.
King, Capt. Phillip Parker. New York: AMS Press, 1966.

Narrative
of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and
Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, Volume 2.
FitzRoy, Capt. Robert. New York: AMS Press, 1966.

Narrative
of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and
Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, (appendix to Volume
2).
FitzRoy, Capt. Robert. New York: AMS Press, 1966.

Narrative
of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and
Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, Volume 3.
Darwin, Charles. New York: AMS Press, 1966.

From
Sails to Satellites: The Origin and Development of Navigational
Science.
Williams, J.E.D. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Dealing
with place names -
Place names are indicated using known spellings that were contemporary
to the early 1830's, except where otherwise noted. This was
done for the sake of clarity, as both Capt. FitzRoy and Darwin
often spelled place names incorrectly in their narratives, sometimes
giving several miss-spellings for the same place.

How
route lines were plotted -
The route lines for H.M.S. Beagle were created using Capt. FitzRoy's
longitude and latitude data from the "Abstract of Meteorological
Journal" in the appendix to his narrative of the voyage.
In those sections where no data is provided in the Abstract
the most logical course was selected based of previous and later
data in the Abstract. The routes of Darwin's inland treks were
created using his personal narrative and those sections of FitzRoy's
narrative where he and Darwin traveled together. In a few instances
Darwin is quite vague in describing the path he took on his
various treks. In such cases a logical route was plotted, taking
into consideration the terrain, location of sites, locations
of roads as they existed in the time, and areas of geological
interest.

About
the Darwin letters -
During the Beagle voyage Darwin kept up a correspondence with
family and friends back home in England, particularly with his
sisters, who were a never ending source of gossip. Transcriptions
of these letters can be found in the Correspondence of Charles
Darwin Vol. 1 (see Credits Section for bibliographic details).
References to these letters are made as follows:

"(CCD,
1:104)"

CCD
= Correspondence of Charles Darwin.
1 = Volume One.
104 = The Calendar Number as indicated in the "Calendar
of the Correspondence of Charles Darwin." A listing of
these numbers is provided at the beginning of Correspondence
Vol. 1 and can be used to look up the transcribed letter in
the text.

The
Darwin Correspondence Project, in Cambridge England, is currently
engaged in publishing all the known letters to and from Charles
Darwin. They have an excellent website, and a link to it can
be found in the Links Section.

About
the "Darwin Discovery" sections -
The Darwin's Discovery sections provide a running commentary
on the observations Darwin made during the Beagle Voyage that
would later influence his thinking on geology, paleontology,
and evolution. Perhaps more importantly, these sections provide
a glimpse at the embryonic stages of Darwin's thoughts on the
transmutation of species.